AMD TR4 water cooling test: getting the max out of Threadripper

Custom water blocks and AIO for Threadripper tested

By Tomas HochstenbachWednesday 10 January 2018 04:59

Introduction

This year AMD is once again competitive at the top of the hardware range. Threadripper is a strong alternative on the high-end CPU market and the Vega GPUs give Nvidia a run for their money. There is a downside to so many cores at such a high clocking frequency, as you would expect, Threadripper can be quite hot-headed. As water cooling is not a luxury for high-end systems, we decided to test four different cooling systems with our Threadripper. We had a look at the custom water blocks by EM, Phanteks and XSPC as well as the ready-made Threadripper cooler by Enermax – the LiqTech TR4 360mm

Throughout the year we have tested many all-in-one water cooling systems, but this is the first time that we dive into the waters of the custom cooling components. A few years ago, we wrote a custom water cooling workshop article as building your own water cooling is not an easy task. Finding components that are compatible with each other and also with the chassis you have can be very daunting.

Along with three of the custom systems, we have tested the Enermax LiqTech TR4 all-in-one cooler specifically made for the AMD Threadrippers. It comes with an enormous baseplate which covers the entire heat spreader of the CPU. The regular water coolers compatible with the Threadripper only cover the middle part of the heat spreader. According to AMD, this is not an issue as the die is located there, but in theory larger cooling area gives better results.

On the coming pages, we look at the four selected coolers in turn and provide a comprehensive comparison of the test results.